The Blessing That Kept Hostages AliveIn the darkest place imaginable, four men discovered that gratitude can keep you alive.
 This week I heard Eli Sharabi, a hostage held for 491 days in Gaza speak about something he invented 50 meters below the ground. Every night, four men forced themselves to name at least one good thing that had happened that day. Because, as he put it, if they didn’t practice gratitude, hope would die. A few days later, at the Westport Library, to mark the release of the last hostage, our local rabbi, Jeremy Wiederhorn removed the yellow ribbon he had been wearing since October 7. Before saying anything else, he recited Shehecheyanu. Everyone in the audience, Jew and non-Jew alike knew the significance. And then, a few days later, I reread Parashat Yitro and the story read differently. Jethro shows up to a newly liberated people. We usually rush past what happens next, because we know where the story is going. Courts. Judges. Administration. Judicial Reform. But before any of that, the Torah lingers.
Cassuto notes the Torah’s repetition of the language of rescue: saved you, saved the people, saved from under the hand of Egypt. The repetition is deliberate. It finds good, even in the bad and parses the good into multiple moments of gratitude. That intentional parsing felt familiar after reading Sharabi whose group of hostages similarly learnt to slice and dice any crumbs of good they could find.
Sharabi describes how the ritual began almost accidentally. One evening, to lift everyone’s spirits, he suggested they try to think of something good that had happened that day. Just one thing. At first, they struggled. Then they began challenging themselves to find more. Over time, the exercise reshaped their days.
What struck me was how matter-of-fact he was about it. Sharabi describes himself as a practical person. From the moment he was kidnapped, he says, he realized he had one job: survival. The thanking circle wasn’t religious inspiration. It was a survival mechanism. That sent me back to the Mishnah in Berakhot. Toward the end of the tractate, there is an exceptionally long Mishnah which lists a series of blessings that are not tied to scheduled commandments but to experience: seeing a place where miracles occurred, hearing good news or bad news, witnessing natural forces, building a house, acquiring something new. These are not blessings for doing something. They are blessings for encountering something. Included in the Mishnah were two provisions that took on greater meaning.
The Talmud comments that we learn this from the text of the twice daily repeated Shema prayer which admonishes us to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our “might”. What does “might” mean?
The second provision is equally appropriate:
Similar to Sharabi who used his daily ritual to focus on the future, the Mishnah sees its blessings as forward-looking. And then comes the blessing which has become identified with Jewish culture:
Shehecheyanu. At the end of this very long Mishnah the Gemara then asks: From where do we know this? Rabbi Yoḥanan answers by quoting Jethro: “And Jethro said: Baruch Hashem.” Rashi tries to limit Jethro’s influence to a singular blessing contained in the Mishnah relating to blessing a place were miracles happened. Either he had a variant text or suffered from "Not Invented Here" (NIH) syndrome, in either case I rest on the Noda BiYehudah’s opinion that clearly the Talmud is attributing all of the Mishnah’s blessings to Jethro. If Jethro could find a blessing in a miracle that happened before he arrived and in a place that he had not been, certainly we can bless the litany of experiential blessings listed in the Mishnah. There is a midrash in the Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael that sharpens this point even further, almost uncomfortably so. Rabbi Pappis says that the verse “And Yitro said: Baruch Hashem” is written to the discredit of Israel. Six hundred thousand people had lived through slavery, plagues, the sea, and liberation, and yet not one of them stood up to bless God—until Yitro arrived and did so. In an article in TheTorah.com entitled: Baruch Hashem: Only Non-Israelites Bless God in the Torah the staff editors point out that all blessings in the Five Books of Moses come from the mouths of non-Jews. Unlike Rabbi Pappis, I do not take this as a swipe at the Israelites. If the Israelites were slow to bless, their descendants, the Jews perfected the art of blessing as illustrated by the iconic Shehecheyanu. I suggest that the non-Jewish origins of blessing emphasizes the humanity in blessing and how it transcends religion and culture… or it should. It shows that blessing is not only a survival mechanism but a healing balm as well. Jethro shows a people who have been through too much how to say out loud that they are still here. In that sense, Yitro does not merely bless God—he teaches Israel how to bless after trauma, when speech does not come easily and meaning has to be rebuilt deliberately. Another version of the Mechilta adds that because Jethro blessed, his descendants merited to sit in the Lishkat HaGazit, the Chamber of Hewn Stone, the seat of the Sanhedrin; the Supreme Court. We usually assume that reward is because Jethro later advises Moses about courts. But the midrash invites another reading. Perhaps the ability to judge depends first on the ability to bless. To extrapolate from Yitro and to my brothers and sisters in Israel, maybe counting our blessings should precede judicial reform. One detail from Sharabi’s story keeps returning to me. The thanking circle wasn’t silent. It wasn’t internal. It was spoken, communal, and regular. Someone said something out loud. Others listened. Over time, it became a fixed ritual. Later in captivity, Sharabi describes asking a formerly religious hostage to recite Birkat Hamazon from memory for the group. Out loud he insists. The blessing begins: “Who sustains the entire world in His goodness.” Kulo betuvo. All of it. Good. Even here. Sharabi’s blessing circle resonates so directly with prayer out load, prayer in groups and responsive prayer…. a Shehecheyanu followed by an Amen. Sharabi also recounts the sentence that circulated among the hostages, attributed to Nietzsche and carried into modern consciousness by Viktor Frankl and spread among the hostages by Hersh Goldberg-Polin, of blessed memory:
Sharabi writes:
Looking through Sharabi’s inspiring lens, we see how Jethro and the Mishnaic blessings he inspired have seared the hearts and soul of the Jewish people with a positive and forward-looking attitude which finds and moves from one Shehecheyanu moment to next. Inherited from humanity and enculturated into our bones, it may be our greatest re-gift to mankind and our only hope of survival. Sefaria Source Sheet: https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/705869 Listen on Spotify;
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Wednesday, 4 February 2026
The Blessing That Kept Hostages Alive
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